Affordable housing in Glendale Heights stirs cultural melting pot

Residents of the Polo Club subdivision enjoy access to a park and Lake Becerra. (Jon Langham/ Photo for the Chicago Tribune)

Sue Etheridge's preschool class in Glendale Heights is a microcosm of this working-class suburb, where the faces are black, brown and white, and the children chatter in many tongues.

"They speak different languages at home, but by the end of the year they all are bilingual," said Etheridge of her 3- to 5-year-old charges.

The preschool is connected to Glendale Heights' village hall, police station, indoor/outdoor Sports Hub and Center for Senior Citizens, forming a central meeting place for residents of all ages in this DuPage County suburb, 23 miles from the Loop. This is downtown for the village, which lacks a central business district. Until a few decades ago, Glendale Heights was still a smattering of farms between its older neighbors, Bloomingdale and Glen Ellyn.

Now, Glendale Heights is a collection of neighborhoods linked like tiles on a Scrabble board 10 turns into the game. It is contained, roughly, by Schmale, Army Trail and Glen Ellyn roads, but several tiles stray from that perimeter.

Glendale Heights offers moderately priced housing for people who cannot afford to buy in tonier DuPage towns. The result is a melting pot of young families living side by side in this village of 34,000 residents.

"It's not like this neighborhood is Polish and this one is Hispanic," said Village Manager Dona Becerra. "Every neighborhood is a United Nations with a mix of cultures."

A drive around town offers a whiff of the diversity, with restaurants serving Indian, Italian, Japanese, Mexican and Pakistani cuisine. Newer churches and mosques provide services in several languages for the varied ethnic groups.

Glendale Heights is a patriotic place, said Village President Linda Jackson, noting that schoolchildren planted more than 3,000 American flags on Memorial Day in Veterans Memorial Park for soldiers who died in the Afghan and Iraq wars.

"Every year on 9/11, everyone comes to village hall for a ceremony. This year we had a huge turnout, even though it was up against a big football game," she said.

Although Glendale Heights' crime statistics were down overall in 2010, burglaries, thefts and assaults are higher than in several other DuPage villages. To combat crime, the village instituted a rental housing program that helps residents and landlords keep illegal activity off their properties. The program employs a combination of tenant screening, village inspections and code enforcement.

Keeping police officers visible is also part of crime prevention, said Jackson.

"They're at the neighborhood parties, in the schools for DARE programs, at community events," she said. "We want the kids to get to know them."

In terms of revenue from sales tax dollars, the village's budget is tight. Glendale Heights is a satellite of Bloomingdale, home to the area's shopping mall and restaurant constellation. But the village has cut few services since the recession, said Jackson.

"We still have fireworks, our popular park parties and a holiday tree lighting," said Jackson. "These are important to the families."

New split-levels and trilevels were all the rage here in the 1970s for young families. These modest houses gave their families enough bedrooms for the kids, plus a lower level to use as a playroom.

"Now, those original owners are retiring and selling," said Andrew Holmes, a real estate agent with ReMax Central in Roselle. "The buyers are the village's second generation."

History

Glendale Heights has only recently emerged from its rural roots. It remained farmland until it was incorporated in 1959, then was mostly undeveloped until the 1970s. Developer Harold Reskin put the village on the map, turning farms into subdivisions while keeping his polo ponies in the vicinity of Polo Club Drive.

Reskin's summer house, an 1888 former farmhouse, is a village-run history center, although it was moved from Bloomingdale Road to Windy Point Drive.

The village's name is a combination of "Glen" from Glen Ellyn and "Dale" from Bloomingdale. "Heights" was added in 1960 after the Postal Service told villagers that there was a Glendale in southern Illinois.

Things to do

Glendale Heights offers a slate of recreational classes and activities for residents. Special events include the four-day Heights Fest in July, International Day in September and a haunted house and Harvest Fest in October.

The village-owned Glendale Lakes Golf Club also has a banquet hall. Kids gravitate to the skateboard ramps at Camera Park, while three gyms, two studios, an indoor soccer arena, a fitness center and a teen room can be found at the Sports Hub, a complex at Civic Center Plaza.

Seniors gather at the new Center for Senior Citizens, where a sign on the wall reads, "Getting old is mandatory. Growing up is optional." It includes a library, an activity room for movies, a beauty salon, crafts room and fitness center.